Brazil soccer great Pele said on Monday that he was recovering in a hospital from surgery to remove a tumor from his colon. Pele, the only player to win three World Cups, did not say whether the tumor was malignant, but the 80-year-old former Santos and New York Cosmos player said he was feeling good. “Last Saturday I underwent surgery to remove a suspicious lesion in the right colon,” he wrote in a social media post. “The tumor was identified during the tests I mentioned last week.” The Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo said in a statement that it was keeping Pele in intensive care but expected to transfer him to a room on Tuesday. The tumor has been sent for tests, it added. “Luckily, I am used to celebrating big victories with you,” Pele wrote. “I am facing up to this match with a smile on my face, a lot of optimism and happiness for being surrounded by the love of my family and friends.” The news came just hours after a Brazilian news outlet said Pele had spent six days in hospital after going in for his annual medical. It also came days after Pele refuted reports he had fainted and 18 months after his son Edinho said his father was depressed, something the star quickly denied. As a player, Pele was famous for rarely getting injured, but he has suffered from hip problems for years and cannot walk unaided. His public appearances were already being cut before the COVID-19 pandemic, and since then, he has made few unnecessary forays outside his house near Santos.
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Day: September 6, 2021
Jean-Paul Belmondo, star of the iconic French New Wave film “Breathless,” whose crooked boxer’s nose and rakish grin went on to make him one of the country’s most recognizable leading men, has died at 88. His death was confirmed Monday by the office of his lawyer, Michel Godest. No cause of death was given. Belmondo’s career spanned half a century. In the 1960s, he embodied a new type of male movie star, one characterized by pure virility rather than classic good looks. He went on to appear in more than 80 films and worked with a variety of major French directors, from Francois Truffaut to Claude Lelouch and Jean-Luc Godard, whose 1960 movie “Breathless” (“Au Bout de Souffle” in its original French title) brought both men lasting acclaim. Belmondo’s career choices were equally varied, from acclaimed art house films to critically lukewarm action and comedy films later in his career. His unconventional looks — flattened nose, full lips and muscular frame — allowed him to play roles from thug to police officer, thief to priest, Cyrano de Bergerac to an unshakable secret agent. Belmondo was also a gifted athlete who often did his own stunts. Reaction from celebritiesFrench President Emmanuel Macron called the actor a “national treasure” in an homage on Twitter and Instagram, recalling the actor’s panache, his laugh and his versatility. Belmondo was at once a “sublime hero” and “a familiar figure,” Macron wrote. “In him, we all recognize ourselves.” FILE – French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo and Italian actress Claudia Cardinale attend a cocktail party in the Foreign Press Association in Rome, Nov. 3, 1960.France bounded into Belmondo mode at news of his death, with praise from politicians of all stripes pouring in. The media played old movie clips that caught the athletic Belmondo in the heart-stopping acrobatics he was known to love, from sliding down a rooftop to climbing up a rope ladder from a moving convertible. “I’m devastated,” an emotional Alain Delon, another top cinema star, said of the death of his longtime friend on CNews. Even Paris police headquarters offered its condolences for Belmondo, who played a police officer in numerous films, tweeting that “a great movie cop has left us.” Early lifeBelmondo, affectionately known as Bebel, was born on April 9, 1933, in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine into an artistic family. His father was renowned sculptor Paul Belmondo and his mother, Sarah Rainaud-Richard, was a painter. Belmondo played soccer and trained as a boxer before quitting school at 16. He took up acting in the 1950s at the Paris Conservatory, where one of his teachers, Pierre Dux, famously told him that his career as a leading man was doomed because of his looks. People would burst into laughter if they saw an actress in Belmondo’s arms, Dux said, according to biographer Bertrand Tessier. French theater critic Jean-Jacques Gautier wasn’t impressed either, once saying, “Mr. Belmondo will never enjoy success with his ruffian’s mug.” At his final conservatory competition, the jury failed to give him the recognition he thought he deserved — so he gave the judges an obscene parting gesture. The star began acting in small provincial theaters and caught the eye of aspiring filmmaker Godard in Paris in 1958, who asked him to appear in a short film. At first, Belmondo didn’t take Godard seriously. “I spoke to my wife about it, and she said, ‘Go ahead. If (Godard) hassles you, punch him,'” Belmondo told the Liberation newspaper in 1999. Belmondo was given his first important role by director Claude Sautet in “Classe tous risques” (Consider All Risks), in which he starred alongside Lino Ventura in 1960. The same year, Godard called Belmondo back to appear in “Breathless” — which became one of the breakthrough films of the French New Wave. The movement, which included Truffaut, grouped filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s who abandoned traditional narrative techniques and were known for their mood of youthful iconoclasm. FILE – French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, center, is congratulated by actors on stage during the ceremony of the 42nd Cesar Film Awards, at the Salle Pleyel, in Paris, Feb. 24, 2017.Belmondo played opposite American actress Jean Seberg, who appeared as the street-smart aspiring reporter who, in the film’s key moment, sold the International Herald Tribune on the Champs-Elysees in Paris. Belmondo sometimes said he acted in Godard’s first film and would act in his last. But he didn’t link his name exclusively with one director and worked with most of France’s top filmmakers — and many of Europe’s well-known actresses, including Jeanne Moreau and Sophia Loren. Following the huge success of “Breathless,” Belmondo showed the vast array of his talent and his versatility in dramas (“Leon Morin, pretre”), arthouse movies (“Moderato Cantabile”) and blockbusters (“Cartouche”). In “Un Singe en hiver,” a French classic directed by Henri Verneuil in 1962, Belmondo impressed the legendary Jean Gabin. “You won’t tell me anymore: ‘If only I had a young Gabin.’ You have him!” Gabin told the director about Belmondo. In Truffaut’s 1969 “Mississippi Mermaid,” Belmondo played a tobacco farmer and starred opposite Catherine Deneuve. Belmondo and Danish-born Anna Karina played a couple on the run in Godard’s 1965 “Pierrot le Fou.” Belmondo also won a Cesar — the French equivalent of an Oscar — for his role in Lelouch’s 1988 film “Itinerary of a Spoiled Child,” his final big success. Later rolesDuring the second half of his career, Belmondo opted for high-paying roles in commercially successful action films. He played a tough detective in “Cop or Hooligan,” and a World War II ace in “Champion of Champions.” In the 1980s, Belmondo returned to the stage, his first love, and won back the doubting critics. His comeback role was in a 1987 Paris production of “Kean,” about an actor famous for his uncontrollable temper and genius. Belmondo, who had recovered from a stroke in 2001, is survived by three children, Florence, Paul, and Stella Eva Angelina. Another daughter, Patricia, died in 1994. Funeral arrangements weren’t immediately known.
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The pollution, emissions and cleanup costs of plastic produced in 2019 alone could be $3.7 trillion, according to a report released Monday by wildlife charity WWF, warning of the environmental and economic burden of this “seemingly cheap” material. There is increasing international alarm over the sheer volumes of fossil-fuel based plastics entering the environment, as microplastics have infiltrated even the most remote and otherwise pristine regions of the planet. In its report, WWF said societies were “unknowingly subsiding” plastic. The report estimates the lifetime costs of the 2019 production is equal to more than the gross domestic product of India. “Plastic appears to be a relatively cheap material when looking at the market price primary plastic producers pay for virgin plastic. However, this price fails to account for the full cost imposed across the plastic life cycle,” said the report, “Plastics: The Cost to Society, Environment and the Economy,” produced for WWF by the consultancy Dalberg. Plastic is everywhere It estimated that unless there was concerted international action, a projected doubling of plastic production could see costs rocket by 2040 to $7.1 trillion. The analysis looked at factors including the greenhouse gas emissions in the production process, health impacts, waste management and estimates of the reduction in the economic services of ecosystems on land and in water. Since the 1950s, roughly 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic have been produced with around 60% of that tossed into landfills or the natural environment. Tiny fragments have been discovered inside fish in the deepest recesses of the ocean and peppering Arctic sea ice. The debris is estimated to cause the deaths of more than a million seabirds and more than 100,000 marine mammals each year. “Tragically, the plastic pollution crisis is showing no signs of slowing down, but the commitment to tackle it has reached an unprecedented level,” said Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF International, in a statement. ‘More plastic than fish’ The report comes as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) meets in the French port city of Marseille, with one motion under consideration calling for an end to plastic pollution by 2030. Earlier in September the European Union threw its weight behind calls for a legally binding international agreement to reduce plastic pollution, during U.N.-hosted talks in Geneva. The U.N. Environment Program has said the planet is “drowning in plastic pollution,” with about 300 million metric tons of plastic waste produced every year. The proposed resolution is to be discussed during the United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi next year. France’s minister in charge of biodiversity, Berangere Abba, said if the world failed to act there would be “more plastic in the oceans than fish” by 2050.
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